Thursday, October 22

Why in the hell a shit pot wants to become a Geyser? And, why in the hell i am writing a post on such a topic? Let me explain, today i heard my geyser talking to my shit pot.{believe me, i was also bedazzled.} But geysers do speak and so do shit pots. They also have sexual preferences and my geyser and shit pot both are gays :'( .

I was taking the hot shower when i heard the following conversation between my geyser and shit pot:

Geyser: You know shitty, this guy turns me on every morning and as he undresses the juices within my body start boiling. The signal on my body turns from green to red, marking the erotic state of my mind.

Shit pot: Don't start this all over again. He is a bastard and gives me a good view of his ASSets every day but as soon as i am turned on he shits one me :'(

Geyser: Thank goodness! I am so lucky, since the time his back has got injured he takes prolonged showers while giving a wonderful view of his ASSets and i get to jerk off my hot juices {read water :)} on his body.

Shit Pot: I too get to feel his body when he sits but then it gets too kinky, wish i were a geyser {subjunctive mood here :) }

I hope you believe me now! Shit pots do talk and they too want to be someone else.

Tuesday, October 20

Various questions pop up in the mind of an MBA applicant while preparing for the GMAT: How much time should be devoted to preparation?, whether to book the date first or prepare first, Is it good to pre-pone/Post-pone the date?, Which material to use?, When to start giving Mock CATs, How many Mock CATs etc etc.

When i first thought about giving GMAT, i knew nothing about it. All the information that i could get on the net only increased my problems. So much material and so many Mock CATs to choose from, different plans employed by various candidates to crack the GMAT. My friends who have given the GMAT cleared up a lot of doubts but each one of them suggested a different approach and different set of books to prepare for the exam.

I believe most of the GMAT applicants are confronted with following questions:

1. How much time shall I keep aside for GMAT preparation??

There will be people who will simply book a date a week ahead and crack 770 and there will always be people who will slug it out for months and get a jaw dropping score such as 550. Its good to aim high but its better to know your capabilities and manage your expectations. Its easier to go from 500 to 650 or from 500 to 690 but for every 10 point gain in your score post the 690 mark hard work alone won't help, Smart work along with rock solid determination, laser sharp focus and an insurmountable desire to succeed is required.

To be honest the time will depend upon your capabilities and your target score. The preparation time is inversely proportional to your capabilities and target score. But anything from 45 days to 180 days is more than enough. A longer preparation period can lead to burnout and you might peak before your G-day.
So, how to find out the ideal prep duration? I would say go ahead and book a date 3 months ahead. This takes us to our next two questions:Whether to book the date first or prepare first, Is it good to pre-pone/Post-pone the date?

Not everyone has the determination to put in few hours of preparation everyday. Booking a date might give you the much needed kick and invoke a sense of urgency. You might ask what if I am unable to cover the course in 3 months? Now I will say you can always go ahead and post pone the exam. I know I am going to draw flak for saying this but I would like to give my rationale. Normally a prep plan looks something like this:

1. CR -- Go through the fundamentals using Manhattan or Powerscore -- 7 days
2. Start practising CR questions -- OG-11 - 5 Days, OG-12 - 5days, 1000 CR - till 30 Feb -- as many as possible
3. Manhattan SC guide-- 7 days
4. SC practise -- OG-11,12 , 1000SC -- 25 days
5. Quant prep -- bla bla
6. Mock CATs -- bla bla But one soon realizes that it is not so easy to execute the plan. Some might have to put in long hours in the office, some might have to travel, some might get injured or ill {like me :'(}, some have to devote time to their family.

Above all at the time of preparing a plan one is not sure as to how much time it would take to complete a given topic. A lot of candidates have not touched quant or verbal books for years after the college and for this reason many candidates feel rusty when they start solving the questions. The plan which was prepared earlier is gone for a toss.

CR - Powerscore bible -- 7 days {oh hell, i can’t even go through those 500+ pages in 15 days and my G-day is coming}, the anxiety of not completing a given topic within the timeline takes the toll of the preparation. The quantitative approach takes over the qualitative approach for test preparation. Candidate simply wants to do as many questions as possible without properly analyzing the questions and Mock CATs. If you want to know how to analyze the questions and Mock CATs then BTG{Beat the GMAT} has tonnes of info.

If you feel that you are taking some time over and above what you had initially allotted to a section/topic then don't let the quality suffer. Do each and every question with utmost dedication, check out each and every answer choice and make sure that you know why you are crossing out a particular choice and why you are selecting a particular choice as the final answer. {So how am i going to meet my deadlines?? My G-Day is coming} that’s why i said: you can always postpone the exam. Don’t make it a habit though, don’t take undue advantage of the fact that this exam can be postponed but use this flexibility to benefit yourself.

Take the stock of the situation, by preparing for 15-20 days you will get a fair enough idea of your abilities and the time that you need to attain the peak. Accordingly either pre-pone the exam or post pone it. Why pre-pone the exam?? Ok, you have prepared well for 45 days and now you are getting 750+ in the Mock CATs and you still have 45 days to go. If you are sure that you won't get burnt out by the end then don’t pre-pone otherwise you know what my suggestion would be.
Fair enough, i have taken a date 3 months ahead, i have given one Mock CAT now what? Which material shall i use? Again, this is a very subjective question. The choice of material totally depends upon your curent level. If you lack the basics then attempting the Manhattan Mock CAT quant will only shatter your confidence. And if you are finding it hard to understand what is parallelism and what is subject verb agreement then there is no point in attempting the questions from OG. Choose the prep material wisely.

One question that is bugging me right now is whether to start giving Mock CATs or wait for few more weeks. I think a lot of candidates face this problem while preparing for GMAT. I don’t want to give a lot of CATs because doing so might lead to a burn-out and giving too few CATs might leave me a bit unpolished before my date with the beast.

As of now i am not well prepared to tackle the quant section. I am making all sorts of careless and calculation mistakes. I am not well acquainted with fundamentals of Set theory {esp 3 sets}, Progressions, Combinatorics and Stats. I am through with the fundamentals of CR and SC but still haven't achieved a good hit rate {esp in SC :'(, lack of concentration is dragging my accuracy.}. I am not sure whether it would be good to waste time on Mock CATs while i am still brushing up Quant fundamentals or go ahead and track my progress in verbal section.

Some people are of the opinion that one should first be well versed with all the sections of the GMAT before attempting the Mock CATs. While others support the strategy of giving as many Mock CATs as you can before the real GMAT.

Give one Mock CAT in the begining to know where do you stand and then wait till you are well versed with basics of all the sections. Once you have covered all the sections start giving Mock CATs and analyze them in detail {as explained in the article written by stacy}. You must know your strengths and weaknesses, after giving Mock CATs you must develop a gut feeling as to when it is best to guess and move ahead.

Friday, October 16

As the candlelight flame,
Ur life may always be happiness' claim;
As the mountain high,
U move without sigh;
like the white linen flair,
Purity is always an affair;
As sunshine creates morning glory,
fragrance fills years as flory;
with the immaculate eternal smile,
attached to u mile after mile;
All darkness is far away,
As light is on its way;
Wish all of u a very happy diwali.

Sunday, October 4

Today i spent sometime on understanding the basics of CR. I would like to summarize few key points which must be kept in mind while attacking the CR questions:

1. Read actively: No matter what the complexity of stimulus is you should read the argument actively. One must keep a note of BOUNDAY WORDS {such as some, many, most, Only if, all, none etc} for they define the scopre of the argument. For example:

Onlyfew soccer players become soccer legends. Somesoccer playersfrequently change their partners and manysoccer legends sleep with some girls. Zidane is a soccer legend.

If above mentioned information is true then which of the following MUST be true?

a.) Zidane slept with many girls -- which might be true but we are looking for something which MUST be true{but the stimulus says MANY soccer legends not all sleep with SOME girls and not MANY}
b.) Zidane headbutted Materazzi -- {This type of answer choices are out of scope answer choices ... whether Zidane head butted Materazzi or Butt headed him is not within the scope of this stimulus.}
c.) Zidane frequently changed his partners {again -- stimulus says some soccer players do that not all -- so this info might again be true but is not necesarily true.}
d.) Zidane was a soccer player -- correct --{how else he can be a soccer legend ?? }

2. Identify the Conclusion:Don't read the question before you read the stimulus and have a crystal clear idea about the conclusion of the argument. I am saying this because most of the questions either have to attack the conclusion or support it. Even if it is a method of reasoning or a Bold face question it helps to know the conclusion. Say in a bold face question one of the bold part is the conclusion of the argument and 3 of the answer choices mention that very part as an asumption or premises then you can quickly cross out those 3 choices.

Now, the conclusion can appear anywhere in the stimulus. In the begining, in the middle or in the end. few things which should be kept in mind are:

Using premise and conclusion indicators to confuse the reader:

“Therefore, since higher debt has forced consumers to lower their savings, banks now have less money to loan.”**

“Higher debt has forced consumers to lower their savings” is the premise;“banks now have less money to loan” is the conclusion. So, in this instance“therefore” still introduces a conclusion, but the appearance of the conclusion
is interrupted by a clause that contains a premise.

See how the premise and conclusion indicators can be clubbed to catch the pasive readers off the guard.

Sub-conclusion and Conclusion: Not every CR stimulus will have a simple structure wherein the premises will lead to the conclusion. One trick that GMAT plays is to place the main conclusion at the begining of the stimulus without any conclusion indicator and then place a sub-conclusion with a conclusion indicator at the end of the stimulus.

a simple argument appears as follows:

Premise ----> Conclusion

a complex argument takes an initial conclusion and then uses it as a premise for another conclusion:

Premise ---> Conclusion/Premise {sub-conclusion} -----> Conclusion

Psychologist**: The obligation to express gratitude cannot be fulfilled anonymously. However much society may have changed over the centuries, human psychology is still driven primarily by personal interaction. Thus, the important social function of positively reinforcing those behaviors that have beneficial consequences for others can be served only if the benefactor knows the source of the gratitude.

Take sometime to identify the conclusion and sub-conclusion of the above mentioned stimulus. Due to stress during the exam it is quite possible that you mistake sub-conclusion for the main conclusion {idiom --> mistake x for y ;) }

3. Read the question properly: Read the question properly, whether it is a strengthen the argument question or Strengthen Except question {i.e all of the following strengthen the argument excep??}

Also, there might be multiple levels in the question itself. For e.g:

Let us consider that some environmentalists are in favour of exploiting the natural resources to the fullest while others are not. The stimulus can load you with tonnes of other information. And the question might be as follows:

All of the following strengthen the attack against the defensibility of exploiting natural resources Except??

simplify the ques as --> which choice does not strengthen the attack on environmentalists who support the exploitation of natural resources..

I am not sure how to start this post. I am full of angst and i need to vent it out. The reason for this utmost frustration is one of the budding parasite {Raj Thackeray} of my country {he is a budding politician}. I am not sure why India is blessed with so many a$$hole politicians. Frequently we have to read about misdeeds of Mayawati, Mulayam Singh, Lalu Prasad, Mamta Banerjee to name a few and now for past few months this Raj Thackeray has disrupted the public life in MUMBAI {See i am writing Mumbai and Not Bombay, else Raj and his goons, oops i should say else The Goon and his sub-ordinates will again take law in their hands and disrupt the public life}

When Nov-26 happened where was this parasite? He was hiding in the underpants of his father at the time terrorists took Mumbai as a hostage. He was nowhere to be seen, he was nowhere to condole the families of policemen who actually died for mumbai. In fact had he come out in public at that time, the public would have beaten him like a street dog {i know my street dog is gonna bark at me today for comparing his species to Raj}.

Recently "Raj the bastard Thackeray" again created chaos when a film mentioned Mumbai as Bombay {Mumbai was previously known as Bombay}. Raj - the goon and his gang again damaged public property. Why cant this parasite have some agenda for the development of Mumbai instead of damaging public property every now and then.

I wish that Terrorists had shot this very man on Nov-26 but why will they ever shoot their companion!!!

Its high time that these kind of politicians are shown the way. Mumbai is going for polls and i believe that people who really care for the development of Mumbai will not vote for this man {people who care for development of mumbai wont be able to cast their votes because once elected all the politicians are going to serve their own interests}. But still its the matter of choosing a smaller bastard over a bigger bastard. And for these politicians i would like to mention a few lines from a book that i just read:

Davis and Blomstrom’s Iron Law of Responsibility: “In the long run, those who do not use power in a manner which society considers responsible will tend to lose it.” Though

the “long run” may require decades or even centuries in some instances, society ultimately acts to reduce power when society thinks it is not being used responsibly

Lastly, one should not write when he/she is utterly frustrated, it is my bad that i wrote this post for the sake of criticizing Raj rather than addressing the real issue and proposing a well thought solution...